How do microsoft mak keys work

Please note that you must by a volume licence for each operating system product version. This happens only once. That special ISO image you got contains a special Windows version that does not require a product key. Once a client is installed, it just searches your network for a KMS server through DNS and tries to activate against it. Once validated, clients stay validated as long as they get in contact twice a year days with your KMS service. And there is a limited number of activations you are entitled to.

This VAMT tool can cache activation requests so you can redeploy or re-image systems and reactivate them without seeing your activation limit getting reached. Home Solar About. Introduction If you have to administer a large number of PCs running Windows, you will end up creating an automated deployment platform for your Windows clients. Activation Thresholds for Windows Your organization must have at least 5 computers to activate servers running Windows Server.

Your organization must have at least 25 computers to activate client systems running Windows. Activation Thresholds for Office Your organization must have at least 5 computers running an edition of Office to activate installed Office products using KMS.

Product Name include version and edition. Last 5 characters of the product key. The number of host activations required. Business Justification or Reason for Deployment. Product Name includes version and edition. MAK Proxy Activation - One centralized activation request is made on behalf of multiple computers with a single connection to Microsoft online or by telephone. Refer to the following resources for assistance in determining which key to use when activating a Microsoft Volume License product: Read these Microsoft documents about Windows licensing and activation prior to deploying Windows or Windows Server.

A patch is available to allow activation of Windows client machines. Downgrade the machine to Windows Server Run the KMS host on a Windows volume edition machine. Run a Windows Server virtual machine. Only one Office KMS key needs to be installed and used for activation. A patch is not available to allow activation of Office clients. Downgrade the machine to an older version of Windows Server.

Run a Windows Server virtual machine on a newer version of Windows Server. Note If you are an Open License customer, you must purchase at least one unit of the product that you want to re-image to obtain access to the product media and receive a key. To open a downloaded file in Excel, complete the following steps: Open Microsoft Excel.

Select Delimited the default and then select Tab-separated to prevent the display of all data in a single column. Click Finish. CSV file opens in Excel and the data is displayed in separate columns.

Is this page helpful? The MAK key count never goes down. Only up. So what happens when you max out your MAK keys, and need more? And don't have that specific number of servers in use anymore? They authenticate over the network to Microsoft whereas KMS would be locally on a server. Buy more when ya need em. I think if you were using them as tests, as long as they are still on the same machine you aren't using it more than once. That MAK number is for how many activations you have done and not how many licenses you have.

These are two different numbers. Microsoft will give you more activations then you have licenses. Make sure you are not running more copies of Windows then you have actually paid for. MAK Multiple Activation Key product key, as its name implied, is a product key that provided by Microsoft to its customers on volume licensing agreements to activate many computers running Windows operating system or Office productivity suite. Corporate clients of Microsoft has a choice of activating the systems running in their organizations through KMS host or MAK product key.